Is it true that the foods and beverages you consume cause your blood to become more alkaline or acidic? Contrary to popular hype, the answer is: not to any significant degree. Here’s why.

The pH of your blood is tightly regulated by a complex system of buffers that are continuously at work to maintain a range of 7.35 to 7.45, which is slightly more alkaline than pure water.

If the pH of your blood falls below 7.35, the result is a condition called acidosis, a state that leads to central nervous system depression. Severe acidosis – where blood pH falls below 7.00 – can lead to a coma and even death.

If the pH of your blood rises above 7.45, the result is alkalosis. Severe alkalosis can also lead to death, but through a different mechanism; alkalosis causes all of the nerves in your body to become hypersensitive and over-excitable, often resulting in muscle spasms, nervousness, and convulsions; it’s usually the convulsions that cause death in severe cases.

The bottom line is that if you’re breathing and going about your daily activities, your body is doing an adequate job of keeping your blood pH somewhere between 7.35 to 7.45, and the foods that you are eating are not causing any wild deviations of your blood pH.

So what’s up with all the hype about the need to alkalize your body? And what’s to be made of the claim that being too acidic can cause osteoporosis, kidney stones, and a number of other undesirable health challenges?

As usual, the answers to such questions about human health can be found in understanding basic principles of human physiology. So let’s take a look at the fundamentals of pH and how your body regulates the acid-alkaline balance of its fluids on a moment-to-moment basis.

pH is a measure of how acidic or alkaline a liquid is. With respect to your health, the liquids involved are your body fluids, which can be categorized into two main groups:

Intracellular fluid, which is the fluid found in all of your cells. Intracellular fluid is often called cytosol, and makes up about two-thirds of the total amount of fluid in your body.

Extracellular fluid, which is the fluid found outside of your cells. Extracellular fluids are further classified as one of two types:

Plasma, which is fluid that makes up your blood.

Interstitial fluid, which occupies all of the spaces that surround your tissues. Interstitial fluid includes the fluids found in your eyes, lymphatic system, joints, nervous system, and between the protective membranes that surround your cardiovascular, respiratory, and abdominal cavities.

Your blood (plasma) needs to maintain a pH of 7.35 to 7.45 for your cells to function properly. Why your cells require your blood to maintain a pH in this range to stay healthy is beyond the scope of this article, but the most important reason is that all of the proteins that work in your body have to maintain a specific geometric shape to function, and the three-dimensional shapes of the proteins in your body are affected by the tiniest changes in the pH of your body fluids.

The pH scale ranges from 0 to 14. A liquid that has a pH of 7 is considered to be neutral (pure water is generally considered to have a neutral pH). Fluids that have a pH below 7 – like lemon juice and coffee – are considered to be acidic. And fluids that have a pH above 7 – like human blood and milk of magnesia – are considered to be alkaline.

It’s important to note that on the pH scale, each number represents a tenfold difference from adjacent numbers; in other words, a liquid that has a pH of 6 is ten times more acidic than a liquid that has a pH of 7, and a liquid with a pH of 5 is one hundred times more acidic than pure water. Most carbonated soft drinks (pop) have a pH of about 3, making them about ten thousand times more acidic than pure water. Please remember this the next time you think about drinking a can of pop.

When you ingest foods and liquids, the end products of digestion and assimilation of nutrients often results in an acid or alkaline-forming effect – the end products are sometimes called acid ash or alkaline ash.

Also, as your cells produce energy on a continual basis, a number of different acids are formed and released into your body fluids. These acids – generated by your everyday metabolic activities – are unavoidable; as long as your body has to generate energy to survive, it will produce a continuous supply of acids.

So there are two main forces at work on a daily basis that can disrupt the pH of your body fluids – these forces are the acid or alkaline-forming effects of foods and liquids that you ingest, and the acids that you generate through regular metabolic activities. Fortunately, your body has three major mechanisms at work at all times to prevent these forces from shifting the pH of your blood outside of the 7.35 to 7.45 range.

These mechanisms are:

Buffer Systems

Carbonic Acid-Bicarbonate Buffer System

Protein Buffer System

Phosphate Buffer System

Exhalation of Carbon Dioxide

Elimination of Hydrogen Ions via Kidneys

It’s not in the scope of this post to discuss the mechanisms listed above in detail. For this article, I only want to point out that these systems are in place to prevent dietary, metabolic, and other factors from pushing the pH of your blood outside of the 7.35 to 7.45 range.

When people encourage you to “alkalize your blood,” most of them mean that you should eat plenty of foods that have an alkaline-forming effect on your system. The reason for making this suggestion is that the vast majority of highly processed foods – like white flour products and white sugar – have an acid-forming effect on your system, and if you spend years eating a poor diet that is mainly acid-forming, you will overwork some of the buffering systems mentioned above to a point where you could create undesirable changes in your health.

For example, your phosphate buffer system uses different phosphate ions in your body to neutralize strong acids and bases. About 85% of the phosphate ions that are used in your phosphate buffer system comes from calcium phosphate salts, which are structural components of your bones and teeth. If your body fluids are regularly exposed to large quantities of acid-forming foods and liquids, your body will draw upon its calcium phosphate reserves to supply your phosphate buffer system to neutralize the acid-forming effects of your diet. Over time, this may lead to structural weakness in your bones and teeth.

Drawing on your calcium phosphate reserves at a high rate can also increase the amount of calcium that is eliminated via your genito-urinary system, which is why a predominantly acid-forming diet can increase your risk of developing calcium-rich kidney stones.

This is just one example of how your buffering systems can be overtaxed to a point where you experience negative health consequences. Since your buffering systems have to work all the time anyway to neutralize the acids that are formed from everyday metabolic activities, it’s in your best interest to follow a diet that doesn’t create unnecessary work for your buffering systems.

Most grains, animal foods, and highly processed foods have an acid-forming effect on your body fluids.

Your health is best served by a good mix of nutrient-dense, alkaline and acid-forming foods; ideally, you want to eat more alkaline-forming foods than acid-forming foods to have the net acid and alkaline-forming effects of your diet match the slightly alkaline pH of your blood.

The following lists indicate which common foods have an alkaline-forming effect on your body fluids, and which ones result in acid ash formation when they are digested and assimilated into your system.

Please note that these lists of acid and alkaline-forming foods are not comprehensive, nor are they meant to be.

If you’re eating mainly grains, flour products, animal foods, and washing these foods down with coffee, soda, and milk, you will almost certainly improve your health by replacing some of your food and beverage choices with fresh vegetables and fruits.

The primary purpose of this article is to offer information that explains why I believe that you don’t need to take one or more nutritional supplements or “alkalized water” for the sole purpose of alkalizing your body. Your body is already designed to keep the pH of your body fluids in a tight, slightly alkaline range.

The ideal scenario is to make fresh vegetables and fruits the centerpieces of your diet, and to eat small amounts of any other nutrient-dense foods that your appetite calls for and that experience shows your body can tolerate.

I hope these thoughts bring some clarity to this often misunderstood health topic.

This article is very odd. I agree with others who question the point this author is trying to make. I also agree with others who noticed the contradictions in this piece.

He starts out by suggesting that the Ph Level in you body can not be changed by diet to any great degree and by the end of the article he is suggesting a balanced diet in order to regulate PH levels.

By balanced he mean to include meats and dairy along with veggies and fruits. Here is a clue. When an “expert” uses the term balance along with diet, Ignore him! There is no such thing as a balanced diet that contains animal proteins.

Funny that the Okinawans and Sardinians are the longest lived people on the planet, yet they eat animal proteins. I guess they don’t have a ‘balanced’ diet. Someone should inform them they are doing it wrong!

Roy Raelian

As usual peoples minds are made up before they assimilate the information.
When even someones ideas are challenged they kick up about it.
A balanced diet of a range of food types is what we need. No radical directions. The body looks after the rest. We are around 90% water. What happens when you add water to an acid or alkaline? simple chemistry really.

Zabelisa

The only problem is that hardly anybody has a balanced diet unless you eat massive amounts of greens and mostly organic plant base and perhaps some grass fed meat. The body is self-regulating up to a point. Most of us are overwhelmed by toxins and over consumption of processed foods, sugar, alcohol and medications. The body is a complex machine and if it is not properly fed/maintained, it will try to compensate but only if it can find what it needs (nutrients, etc). We are made of about 75% water, not 90% btw.

Leonard Willis

I am told that food grade Hydrogen peroxide taken properly can turn acids to akalines therefore cleansing the body of any cancerous cells.If this is true your summation is incorrect.If you have any information on this I would like to know.Regards

A ketogenic diet, which is the most ‘acidic’ diet one could possibly have- it LITERALLY makes acid forming substances at high levels- also treats cancer. So, there is no contradiction, it’s merely that ‘something else’ besides acid or alkaline is responsible for these two treatments both being effective for eliminating cancer.

Belizean

The author states that the body is self-regulating for pH but fails to differentiate between blood and other body fluids (saliva and urine.) The pH of the blood is self regulating but the saliva is not self regulating. It deserves mention that the way the blood remains regulated is by stealing calcium from the bones and teeth. I’m afraid the author has made it seem like nobody around here has too much acid in the body and yet look at the diet of the average American. It’s horrendously acidic, and the health of the average American reflects it.

The author ought to investigate the fact that cancer cannot live in an alkaline medium. Look at the cancer in the US and tell me that there isn’t an acidity problem. This cannot be self regulating. You can’t have a Garbage In and Good Life Out system. You can’t keep putting garbage in forever and expect the body to magically self regulate.

The author ought to do a web search for “cancer Simoncini” to see the role of sodium bicarbonate in treating cancer, and then search for “robert o. young” and watch his videos about how to make the body alkaline. And yes, it works, and yes, my morning saliva tests are coming in at the 8.0 range now instead of the 6.0 range. At the 6.0 level of body fluids we are ROASTING our tissues in an acid bath no matter what the author thinks about self regulation. Then we wonder why our glands don’t work so well.

What evidence do you have that people ARE ‘too acidic’. Bicarbonate may treat cancer, but a ketogenic diet ALSO treats cancer, as well as seizures, Parkinson’s and Alzheimers. There is literally no evidence that someone being objectively ‘too acidic’ is meaningful to health in any way.

Johnnie

I enjoyed the article. It seemed to be well thought out and very informative.

Thank you Ben

Emery

Your body works to keep your blood level ph correct. If you dump a bunch of acidic food into your system it has to work overtime to balance your blood. You can measure your urine ph very accurately and it will show you what is going on as well. Anybody that has studied this topic knows certain foods are very alkaline and very good for you – so what is your point? Don’t drink alkaline water? Where is the research that show it is not good for you? Seems to me logic would tell you that drinking alkaline water will help your body maintain the correct ph and not hinder it.

Or are you suggesting that there is no good reason to eat food that is alkaline? Or are you suggesting that you should eat alkaline foods but alkaline water is bad? Doesn’t even make sense.

This seems to me to not be a very well researched or written article. You do not make logical arguments for your theories. You even contradict yourself by stating that alkaline foods are good for you at the end. Rather bizarre.

So, how are you determining that these foods are ‘alkaline’. You say that ‘if you dump acid into your blood’ it has to buffer it, but lemon juice, Kombucha, sauerkraut and other fermented foods are all acid, but are widely considered excellent to ‘alkalize’ the blood. It is the theory of ‘alkalizing’ that is not well researched. There is simply no research backing up ‘alkalizing’ your body. In fact, alkalizing the stomach would be a disaster, and bacteria in the colon make acid byproducts that keep us healthy!

There is no research showing any relationship between urine pH and the pH of blood or any other bodily fluids.

Golden Blend

So how are the animals we eat acid-forming? They were alive after all and must have an acid-akaline balance. I have found in my own case that animal fat is not acid forming, particularly when compared to carbohydrates.

Please give me some proof and not your beliefs on my question.

super

this is just crap and completely incorrect.

Anonymous

It is totally correct

Dr. Heath Motley

Actually not all of it. Most grass feed animal produce also have a neutralizing affect due to thee minerals. Not to mention the healthiest tribes/people were predominately meat eaters.

Betsy

Dr, Heath – as an anthropologist I take issue with your assertion that the healthiest people were predominantly meat eaters. Where in the evolutionary record do you get that from?